Finite and Corrupt - The UK Singles Chart Top Twenty 23rd of March

So it seems you subscriber cunts don’t like my earnest
explorations of basically righteous underground music, so from now on I’ll
scale those back and try something a little different. Because my bile and
contempt seem to do a lot better, the Arctic Monkeys Brits speech thing did really well, and after a
brutal one-sided argument about chart music, and someone insisting I “just
don’t like it” I thought I’d prove them wrong, or right by talking about some
every week because I'm nice like that.

#20 Trey Songz –
Na Na

With repetitive lyrics like fifteen passive-aggressive Facebook statuses stacked end-to-end in some sort of final-form combo tedium,
mister Songz seems torn between a faux-tough tribal beat a-la Black Skinhead and faux-melancholy bum-gazing, and finds a way to tribally stare up his own bum.

#19 The Human League
– Don’t You Want Me

Fuck no.

#18 Pitbull featuring
Ke$ha – Timber

Pitbull’s rapping is as tedious as that of a slightly leery
potato can be, this is Ke$ha’s show, and she’s probably at her most bearable,
although the renewed goodwill I feel towards her is undone by the utterly
cardboard Dukes of Hazzardism which is executed with an eye on the quirky
dollar. It was nice to be able to set my watch by this song at least.

#17 Christina Perri– Human

Sounds like the backing music in an advert I ignore. I feel
this series might quickly require a stamp that says “boredom does not equal
depth”. Pop should be a riot, not a quiet Sunday stroll down inspa-lazyional
lane. Destined to be added to the shit playlist at stupid people’s funerals.

If you like this song, I hope you do run a red light, pulled
over, and get beaten by the police. The beat might be passable if some
ex-x-factor douche wasn’t skinny-jeaning all over it.

#15 Flo Rida –
How I Feel

The extent to which all Flo Rida songs sound like their
imitators is exceeded only by how much their songs sound like each other.
Probably interesting for the Asda George-level attempts at big bandstand style.

#14 Avicii –
Addicated to You

Maybe Winehouse. The sapphic Baise Moi suicide bomber video
is pretty radical in comparison to a lot of this bullshit and the song moves at
a decent clip, with enough classic style and modern sheen to make the whole
thing click. And there isn’t any vocal solo bum-gazing to shit on all the good
will. Call it a B+.

#13 Example –
Kids Again

Surprisingly I prefer Example to protracted unanaesthetised
Soviet prison dental work, but this new song is no Kickstarts. I guess Ibiza
party anthems are easy to make for their idiot audience, but they just aren’t
any good.

#12 A Great Big World
& Christina Aguilera – Say Something

Don’t say anything, just turn around, walk away, and
hopefully this baleful misery porn wank will have evaporated and never be seen
again.

#11 Chainsmokers
– #SELFIE

If you like “hashtag selfie” then you’re a bad person.
Rebecca Black was, rightly, a complete joke, but only months later Carly Rae
Jepsen was getting taken seriously, and now there’s this. An awful recycled
beat from that Psy song that wasn’t Gangnam Style and an awful So-Cal accented weekend-at-daddies nothing on vocal duties, but it isn’t purely musical, this song is
evil. It’s about loathing. Either you’re some holier-than-thou shitbag who
likes to pretend they’re above this bullshit, or you’re a selfie-taking creep
who has deluded themselves into thinking that realising what a complete loser
you are makes you immune. Either way, if you’ve ever listened to this without
genuinely feeling bile rising in your throat, you should be oppressed. The fact
is, songs like this are bad for the world. I don’t exaggerate when I say I want
to lead a national campaign to hunt down anyone who bought this track with a
pack of dogs.

Excuse me while I spend five minutes screaming into a pillow
to calm myself down.

#10 Sam Smith –
Money On My Mind

Tuneless caterwauling like he’s got his knackers caught in a
zipper, and this chorus is more annoying than discovering you’ve got a hole in
your shoe and some dogshit has snuck in there.

#09 Enrique Iglesiasfeaturing Pitbull – I’m a Freak

Enrique Iglesias is still alive? Apparently, although I
forgot that, along with this whole song. It should be examined by scientists,
because I realised about two minutes in that I’d forgotten the beginning of the
song.

#08 Katy Perry
featuring Juicy J – Dark Horse

Apparently this song is offensive and has been banned by the
kinds of backwards places that also ban women from driving… certainly offended
me with its glacial pace, but not as much as vanilla talentless Perry’s
consistent inexplicable fame and success.

#07 Clean Bandit
featuring Jess Glynne – Rather Be

The violin violation doesn’t fit at all, but it’ll work on
the next Samsung or Hewlett Packard advert.

#6 Little Mix –
Word Up!

I have a herniated disk in my lower back. Essentially that
means the little gel pillows that stop my vertebrae clanking together when I’m,
well, upright, have burst and pinch a nerve. Having this eternal pain is
preferable to the thought of listening to this sub-sub-sub-sub-sub Spice Girls
shit ever again.

#5 DVBBS &
Borgeous featuring Tinie Tempah – Tsunami (Jump)

When did rappers start bragging “spending way more than I
save, I hope it’s a phase”? 25 years ago NWA’s Straight Outta Compton was
daring and dangerous, now we’ve got this garbage. Though I’d be lying if I said
the beat didn’t work.

#4 Pharrell Williams
– Happy

Professional celebrity hat exister-under tries to make an
anthemic single; is too drippy to catch on.

#3 John Legend –
All of Me

Less of you.

#2 Route 94 featuring
Jess Glynne– My Love

Repetitive, empty, and utterly meaningless [Yes, like this
blog, ha ha ha you unfunny fuck you]. Hurry up and take some o’ them green
eccies already, because this shit sucks.

#1 Duke Dumont
featuring Jax Jones – I Got U

It’s not summer yet, and it shows. Somebody will probably
name this the “soundtrack to the summer”, which means they’ve never heard of
T-Rex and I feel sorry for those people.

I used to be into pop music, back in 2003 when I was a
stupid little shit. If anything the videos have got more misogynistic. So yeah,
chart music, dull, awful, occasionally outright offensive and very rarely
tolerable. Can’t we see one man’s arse? Seeing as nothing really lit my candle
this week, why don’t I give you a bonus track to remind you what good pop music
is. Take it away, the Rolling Stones; who, with their infectious energy and
pitch-perfect mix and construction will make you believe you’ve seen the face
of God, and remind you of a time when chart music was consistently excellent.

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